Only for Sookie
by Wylis
Summary: A strange supernatural event causes Sookie to wake in a place that's both startlingly familiar and heartbreakingly different.
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N:**__ So I had this idea for a very short story (about 5 chapters). Since I've been a good little worker bee and am several chapters ahead with 'She's Not There' I thought I would give it some attention so it would stop badgering me. _

_This story takes place right after From "Dead to Worse", so after Eric remembers his time under Hallow's curse with Sookie, but before all the angsty unhappiness of the last several books. _

_My wonderful Beta, __**Northman Maille**__, was quite right to point out that there are some similarities between this little fic and the fabulous group of stories by __**Ericizmine**__: "Bored to Death" and its sequels. I want to state right out that I mean no disrespect to that author (you should check out all her stories if you haven't already, they're all fabulous). I just also find the possibility of alternate dimensions intriguing. _

_I watched the horrible/awesome 'The One' again a few weeks ago with my hubby (we can agree on kung Fu and sci-fi and that's about it, so after ten years pickens is slim on movie night) and that was actually what got my brain moving on the path that became this story. _

_**Disclaimer:**__ I don't own them…I just enjoy fucking with Sookie's head!_

"Sookie, Arlene it's really getting bad out. There's no one here, I'm gonna close up early. You girls go on and get home before it gets too bad to drive." Sam's words were only echoing what I'd been thinking for the last half hour.

Normally I wouldn't want take the chance of missing out on tips by heading home early, but the bar had already cleared out an hour ago because of the late summer storm. There was no one here but the three of us, and it was clear that no one would be coming in.

I said good night quickly and ran out through the parking lot to my car, praying it would start. Trey had fixed it up real nice, well as nice as my car was ever going to be, after the incident with Sigebert. I was beyond grateful to him but, the truth was, I'd used it to plow down an eight hundred year old mountain of deranged Saxon vampire: there was no completely recovering from that…ever!

I breathed out a sigh of relief when I finally heard the car turn over and began the slow drive home. It was pouring buckets outside and, with the cold fogging up my wind-shield, my visibility was already almost nil. I managed to make it home only because I could drive the stretch of road between Merlotte's and my old farmhouse in my sleep if I needed to.

I had just parked the car, when the storm began to take on a truly eerie quality. The days still felt like Summer, even though it was mid September, but as I made a mad dash from the car to the porch the freezing cold rain began to change and suddenly I heard an unfamiliar pelting sound. I held out my hand and felt my eyes go wide with shock as my fingers were hit repeatedly by pieces of hail just the size of the gravel bits on my driveway.

Before I could contemplate what in heck God was thinking letting it hail (in Louisiana!), a huge bolt of lightning lit up the sky, causing me to jump in terror. The horrible cracking sound of thunder came only a second or two later, and had my hand shaking, as I tried to get the key to fit into the lock on the kitchen door.

I managed to make it into the house just as another huge bolt of lightning divided the dark sky and the accompanying thunder crack had me scrambling for my room, quickly stripping down to my t-shirt and underwear, and diving the safety of the covers. In the morning I knew I would feel utterly foolish for being afraid of something as silly as a freak thunderstorm. I'd fought vampires, witches, weres and serial killers in the last couple of years, but one act of God could still reduce me to a shaking little five year old; hiding under her bed.

I'd hoped the security of a familiar room would make me feel better but, as the sound of hail battering the house and thunder cracking outside got worse, so did my state of mind. I was a rational, grown woman most days but I couldn't shake the childish feeling that something was off, there was something… not right about the storm. And like a small child whose toys turn into monsters once the lights go out; I found myself shivering in fear with every new noise. Trying to tell myself it was no big deal but failing miserably.

I was in the middle of another pointless pep talk when I saw it coming: a lightning bolt shooting straight out of the sky and searing its way towards the house. Screaming I jumped out of the bed at the last moment, only to see the window, closest to where I'd been laying, shatter into a million pieces.

I jumped back even further, my back slamming against the wall as the crash of thunder came and I tried to muffle my screams with my hands. Through my fingers I saw something… things, shadowy shapes, moving around the room. They were completely translucent, I couldn't see them clearly but the sounds of them talking came to me, frightening whispers that were too low to understand, but just loud enough to come out like gibberish.

Not stopping to think I ran from the room screaming. I was oblivious to the continuing sounds of hail and thunder and the bursts of light that illuminated my way to the front door. I had been afraid of the storm, but the things in my room had terrified me beyond the ability to reason. I ran like a crazy person throwing the door open and propelling myself out into the cold, wet night in nothing but my Merlotte's t-shirt and my white cotton boy shorts.

I didn't have a conscious idea of where I was going, although it probably would have made sense to run to Bill's so at least I wouldn't have to be alone for the rest of the night, I was just moving away from the house as fast as I could. Through the trees, into the cemetery, barefoot and stupid petrified when, all of a sudden, there was another bolt of illumination and another jolting crack of thunder.

I only barely saw the branch coming at my face in the dark and only registered what it was too late. The impact was swift and painful as the fallen wood smacked me hard on the side of the head, but after that there was nothing. Blissful darkness swallowed me and everything else was gone.

.(~*~).

"Sookie? God lord, are you alright?" The sound came from what seemed like far away. The voice was familiar but my head hurt too much to figure out who the owner was. Knowing I would have to open my eyes to find out, I made the climb back up to consciousness.

"Ughn," was the best I could do as I blinked repeatedly trying to focus in the bright sun. The side of my face was sunk an inch deep in the mud, and a pair of black slacks covered legs were kneeling in front of me.

I tried to sit up only to feel the deep red blush nearly consume my cheeks, neck and chest in heat. I was lying on my side, my t-shirt hiked up past my waist, my now filthy, muck caked boy shorts out for the whole world to see. And of all the people on God's green Earth, who should find me in this utterly dignity-less state, Selah Pumphrey! I'd suspected I was bad Christian for some time now, but I thought Jesus would at least have the courtesy to wait until Judgment Day to share his agreement with me.

"Selah? What are you doing here?" I asked, getting to my feet dizzily, and trying hopelessly to brush off the mud at the same time. The effort made my head pound and I almost doubled over as the pain seared through my right temple, when Selah's hands came out to steady me.

"You poor thing, I think I should be asking you that. I was just walking over to see if y'all were alright. Bill said he saw lightning hit pretty close to your house last night. A falling branch must have knocked you out." She pointed to a scorched tree not far away and then to a splintered bough lying next to me on the ground.

Too tired, sore and in pain to care much about anything else, I gratefully took Selah's arm to steady myself, and allowed her to help me walk back to the house.

If I had felt steadier or more coherent I probably would have asked what in heck she was doing at Bill's house to begin with. The last time I saw Selah she was a hysterical wreck because Bill had allowed her to overhear how much he still wanted to be with me. Actually the better question would have been, even if she and Bill had made up, why would she have been coming over to see if I was okay after the storm, and why was she so nicely helping me get back to the house?

Maybe I'd just had my weekly quotient of weird during the storm and couldn't process any of that, or maybe I was being smart enough not to look a gift horse in the mouth when I really did need the help. Either way I kept my mouth shut and let Selah walk me back to the house.

The wind must have blown the front door shut during the night because it was locked up tight when we got to it. Taking the spare key out of the potted plant by the door, I turned and thanked Selah for all of her help.

"Are you sure you'll be alright Sookie? I can stay if you need me to."

I had no idea why she was being so nice to me, but something stopped me from dipping into her head to see if she really meant it. I was still too frazzled to deal with someone else's nasty thoughts on top of my headache, and Selah's brain was usually full of them.

"Thanks Selah, truly, but I'll be alright." She nodded after one more scan of my mud covered, half naked body and then patted me on the shoulder.

"Alright, but call if you need anything, okay?" With that she turned around and began to walk through the trees.

Exhausted and unsteady from my headache I decided what I needed was sleep, but before I could get that I needed to get clean. I walked through the house and into the bathroom, gingerly, trying not to leave too many muddy foot prints on the floor. Leaving my shirt and underwear in the sink, I turned the shower as hot as I could take it and climbed underneath the spray. The heat was heavenly, and with the bright, sunny world returned to normal outside, I began to relax and let the shower work its magic, calming my headache and loosening my kinked muscles.

Reaching over for my peach body wash with closed eyes, I opened the bottle and was greeted with the wrong scent. My eyes flew open to see an expensive looking bottle of sandalwood shower gel. I had no idea where it could have come from, but the smell was more than familiar to me. It reminded me of Eric. It smelled so much like him, as it mixed with the hot steam from the shower, that I could almost believe he was there with me.

Still it didn't make any sense to me. Eric had only ever stayed with me when he had amnesia and I definitely didn't have the money to buy him something as expensive, and by the look of the bottle, hand mixed as this. Plus, even if I had, it definitely wasn't sitting there before.

Scanning the shower for the first time I started to see other things that just shouldn't be there. On the shower caddie there was a man's razor, an 'ass to expensive' bottle of men's shampoo and conditioner and a bottle of Johnson and Johnson's No Tears kid's shampoo.

Maybe I'd hit my head harder than I thought. After all, I'd been knocked unconscious. I could have a concussion, brain damage…something. Closing my eyes and squeezing them as hard as I could without making myself dizzy, I counted to ten and opened them again. Nothing had changed in the ten seconds I'd been waiting. All the extra stuff was still there.

Ignoring the icky, eerie feeling that started to come over me (the same one I got when I watched scary movies) as though someone was with me, or watching me over my shoulder, or something, I hurried through the rest of my shower. If anyone had been with me they would probably have burst out laughing at the comical terror with which I pulled back the shower curtain, more than half expecting a psycho with a knife to be waiting on the other side, intent on killing me.

I noticed it then, two peach colored towels hanging on the towel rack and one much smaller green one with a hood that looked like a silly frog's head. Pulling both of the big towels off the rack I sniffed them. One of them smelled like me, and I used it to dry off and wrapped it around my body, hanging the other one back up, ignoring the fact it smelled unmistakably like Eric.

Now that I looked at it, my bedroom was different too. The differences were subtle but they were there. There was an extra night table by the side of the bed that I never used. There was another dresser in the room. Opening the closet I saw both sides were full. Once side had all the clothes I always had in there, but across from them were men's clothes, lots of them. There were a few fancy suits with designer labels and a shelf system which had NEVER existed in my closet, with Jeans and t-shirts neatly organized by color. Pulling a pair of jeans down, I examined them: True Religion, size thirty-two waist, forty-two inseam.

"Jesus Christ Shepherd of Judea what is going on?" I said, just shoving the jeans back, unfolded, onto the shelf where I'd gotten them.

Forgetting all about getting dressed I started retracing my steps through the house. I'd only just made it out of the bedroom when I was greeted by a sight I had no idea how to handle. There, in my old bedroom, where Octavia had until very recently been living, was a crib. Opening the door wider I saw a crib wasn't the only thing off about the room. There was a changing table, a rocking chair, a chest of dresser drawers with little ponies painted on them, a handmade rocking horse and a pretty little rug, all done in shades of pure white and soft, pale pink.

Before I could process any of it, I heard the front door open and close again. Terrified of who or what it might be, I clutched the towel closer to me, regretting now I hadn't dressed first. I was all set to make a mad dash out of the house again, when I heard an all too familiar voice.

"Sookie? Lover, are you home?" The voice rounded the corner and brought with it the body of its owner. Concern flashed across his features when he saw me standing there, staring dumbly into space in nothing but a towel, but I couldn't make sounds form words to answer him.

At the top of the hallway from the living room to the bedrooms, standing in a shaft of sunlight, wearing a perfectly fitted gray t-shirt and a pair of those 'oh so expensive, nothing from Wall Mart_ ever _fits like that', black jeans, was Eric.

His hair was inexplicably cut short, his skin was tanned to a golden honey, and the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed was clear to me, but it was him. Standing there in the sun…breathing, was the vampire I'd cared more for, once upon a time, than any other man alive or dead. Standing there, _in the middle of the day_, was the vampire who'd visited me at Merlotte's not two weeks ago, promising again we would come to an 'agreement' and then completely forgot about me.

This time, at least, there wasn't any pain as the blackness took me. My head didn't hit the hard wood floor until _after_ I'd passed out.


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N:**__ Just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who checked out the first chapter, reviewed, alterted and put it in their favorites!_

_And I gotta thank my awesome beta, __**Northman Maille**__, you rock girl! And shout out my ffbff, __**Cageyspice**__- the end of the second paragraph was totally inspired by you!_

_**Disclaimer:**__ I don't own them…I just like Eric so much I think there should be more than one of him!_

"Sookie, Lover, please wake up!" Eric's voice called to me softly but insistently, as a big, warm hand stroked the hair away from my forehead.

I didn't know how long I'd been out this time, but it struck me that if this was going to become a habit, me smacking my head and being woken up by people who shouldn't be around, I might need to start wearing a helmet.

Opening my eyes slowly, painfully aware of the ache in my head that now encompassed my right temple and the whole back of my skull, I met the warm, worried eyes of Eric. No, not Eric, Eric would be dead the world right now, somewhere in Shreveport.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked, pushing the breathing Eric doppelganger's hand away and scurrying back to sit against the headboard. I took the quilts on the bed with me when I realized that the man in front of me had relieved me of my towel, and put me naked under the covers.

"Sookie, it's me." He said, real fear starting to lace his voice. "What happened to you? Where's April? Selah Compton called me a half hour ago and said she found you unconscious in the cemetery in your underwear." He answered trying to reach out and touch me. When I batted his hand away a second time I could see his confusion and hurt clearly.

I didn't even know where to begin telling him how many things were wrong with what he'd just said, but clearly one of us was off our rocker. It was a shame I didn't have much confidence that it wasn't me.

Dropping my shields and opening my mind I reached out, and nearly passed out again when I was able to access his thoughts. He was genuinely scared and confused. I could hear him thinking that when he'd left the house this morning everything was just fine. Now he came rushing home after the call from Selah to find me in a daze. I'd passed out on him, was acting crazy, and he couldn't find hide nor hair of this April person.

When his mind pictured April, I couldn't help the cry that left my mouth. April was a baby, a little girl, his little girl…with me! He believed with all his heart that he was Eric Northman and I was his wife, Sookie Northman, and April- _April Adele Northman_- was our daughter. I'd been taking her to the church play group when he left for work this morning, and now she was missing and I was acting insane.

"Eric?" I said softly, shocked out of my fright, as I reached out and touched him.

He nodded at me, pushing the side of his face into my hand as he did. The electrical shock that passed between us was unmistakable, as was the warmth of his skin. I let my hand wander down further, sweeping his neck and gasping as I felt the pulse under his ear, coming to rest on his chest, over his undeniably beating heart.

"It's me lover." He responded, and I could hear in his head that he had no idea what was going on but he was seconds away from calling an ambulance for me and then the police to find our daughter.

"You're… you're Human!" I said.

'Eric's' response was swift and immediate. He took me gently but firmly by the shoulders and pulled me to him, searching my eyes with his before taking a deep breath and asking his last question over again.

"Sookie, where's April?"

Before I could answer him his cell phone went off. Under any other circumstances I would have giggled at the idea of Eric Northman, _my _Eric Northman, having 'Your Song' by Elton John as anyone's ringtone, but since I was three seconds away from a nervous breakdown I thought it would be best not to start laughing manically for any reason.

Eric stared at the phone, utter disbelief in his eyes for one second, before touching the screen to make it pick up the call.

"He..hello?" He answered, his hand shaking as it held the phone to his ear. The volume was up loud enough for me to hear my own voice coming from the other end.

"Hey honey. I'm so sorry I just got your calls. I left the cell phone in the car when we went into playgroup. What's up?" Eric wasn't the only one who was shaking then as we both heard the sound of a happy, gurgling baby in the background. The woman on the other end laughed just as happily. "Do you wanna talk to Daddy too? Huh sweat pea? Say hi Daddy, we love you!"

Eric's eyes shut tight as he let out a huge breath, his shoulders slumping in relief.

"Baby, where are you?" He finally asked her, his voice still tinged with anxiety.

"We just got out of playgroup. We had a great time. April even sat up all by herself so everyone could see. She's such a show off just like her Daddy. Hey, we're gonna head over to Wal-Mart and do some shopping. Is there anything you want to add to the list?" Eric's grip on the phone tightened to the point that I was afraid he might break it.

"No!" He answered immediately, panic creeping back up on him. "No, Sookie, baby, just come home. I'm home, just come here."

"Eric is everything alright? What's wrong?" That seemed as though it was the question of the day. Eric looked over at me and gripped the phone hard again.

"I'll be alright as soon as I see you, just hurry home, okay? Don't stop for anything just COME STRAIGHT HOME!"

"Okaaaay. I promise, we'll be there in fifteen minutes. I'll make us lunch." With that the Sookie on the other end disconnected and I was left looking, once more, at a nearly hyperventilating Human Eric. Putting the phone back in his jeans pocket he stared at me hard.

"Who are you?" He said, suddenly standing and stepping away from me as though I would burn him. I pushed down the urge to pinch myself, to find out if this was just a dream. The aching pounding in my head was proof enough that whatever was going on, something as simple as waking up wasn't going to solve it.

"I'm Sookie Stackhouse. I'm just…I don't seem to be your Sookie Stackhouse." I said, not knowing what else to say.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" He barked at me, angry now he was sure his wife and child were safe and on their way home. I held up a hand hoping to assure him I meant no harm, as I used the other to grip the quilt tight to my naked chest.

"Please, I don't know what's going on here anymore than you do, but I promise you I'm no threat to you and your family." I could hear in his head that he had no idea what to think, but he didn't have a reason not to believe the naked woman with the concussion in his bed. "Why don't I get some clothes on and then we can try to figure all this out, okay?"

He thought about it for a quick moment and then nodded his head, turning and heading for the bedroom door. When he was halfway through he turned around and looked at me, again trying hopelessly to make sense of everything.

"I'll be in the living room." Was all he ended up saying, before leaving and closing the door behind him.

I made quick work of getting on some underwear, a pair of old, worn jeans and a blouse from the back of the closet. It wasn't my style, it had been a gift from Maxine Fortenberry, at least the way I remembered things, for my twenty-first birthday. I'd never worn it, not even once, and I figured if the other Sookie was anything like me she wouldn't miss it one bit.

When I walked out into the living room he was waiting for me, pacing the length of the room in long, fast strides. As he walked past the mantle the pictures there drew my attention. Some of them were familiar to me. Pictures of my Gran and Grandaddy on their wedding day, pictures of Jason and me playing as kids, pictures of my parents and Gran playing with us on the porch. Others I'd never seen before.

There was picture of Eric, Human Eric and I, on what could only have been_ our_ wedding day, standing in front of the house, smiling and happy. Pictures of Eric and Jason sitting on the porch holding identical bottles of beer. Pictures of Eric and my Gran smiling at the camera.

But the picture that really hit me in the gut. The picture that took my breath straight with it, was of me smiling like a light bulb in a hospital bed, holding the most beautiful, little, golden-haired new born, as Eric and my Gran stood behind me, one of each of their hands on my shoulders as we all beamed for the camera.

"Okay," he started, pinning me with a hard gaze, "now tell me who the hell you are." I flinched at the sound of his voice. I'd heard that tone of voice from Eric before but never directed at me.

"I told you who I am already, that's not gonna help either of us. I think it would be better if you told me a little about your life and then I'll do the same." Eric sized me up again, one long look from the tips of my still bare toes to the ends of my tangled, wet hair and then nodded. I could hear him thinking that he couldn't come up with a better idea.

"I'm Eric Northman. This is my house. I live here with my wife Sookie and my daughter April. I'm from Sweden originally, but my parents moved to Shreveport when I was twelve and my sister Pam was ten. I grew up there. Pam and I own a club together, in Shreveport. I met my wife there six years ago. Her friends brought her there for her twenty-first birthday. We've been together ever since. We got married four years ago and had April this past spring." It wasn't much more than I'd get from a good Google search, but it seemed to be all he was willing to say right now and I knew that I couldn't push him any further. What I had no idea about was how I was going to tell him my version of my…his…our (?) life.

It seemed like I was going to get at least a little bit of a reprieve before I had to start my story though, because just as I was opening my mouth, the sound of a car coming up the drive caught our attention.

Forgetting all about me for the time being, Eric rushed out the door, leaving it every bit as open as I had the night before, and took the porch steps in one giant jump, coming to stop just in front of the car parking in the drive.

The door to the car was barely open before I, the other me, was pulled out of the driver's seat and hauled into Eric's arms. She was laughing, clearly happy to be greeted so enthusiastically, as she wrapped her arms around him too. Eric swung her around twice before setting her back on her feet and kissing her as though the world was ending.

In the middle of all this strange, I found myself feeling…sorry for myself. Not because I was apparently either having the world's most bizarre 'Wizard of Oz' dream or, more frighteningly, because I had somehow wound up somewhere I wasn't supposed to be and didn't have the first clue how to get home, but because they looked so beautifully, perfectly, right together.

I could hear them both and their thoughts were only for each other. Eric was holding on to her for dear life, scared about what was going on, but feeling as though he could deal with anything that came his way as long as 'his' Sookie and April were okay and here with him, where they belonged. Sookie was just basking in her love for her husband. She was irrevocably and unrepentantly in love with him and being in his arms was like her own personal slice of heaven on earth. They kissed passionately for a few more minutes before they finally broke to breathe.

"Honey, what's going on? You had me scared over the phone." The other Sookie said as she pried herself from Human Eric's arms to open the back door of their car.

Putting her finger to her mouth in a universal sign to speak quietly, she lifted a car seat out of the back, a car seat which held a sleeping baby April. Eric's face went even softer and more adoring as he watched the sleeping form of his daughter, one chubby fist jammed into her mouth, the other clutching a worn looking yellow elephant tightly. She was an angel, that much I could tell even from my place half hidden behind the door. Not even a year old, with round rosy cheeks and soft blond curls to her shoulders, it was already clear she was the perfect blend of both of them.

"Come in the house. You need to see it to believe it." He said, taking the car seat from his wife and putting his other arm around her shoulder, holding her tight to him. Eric's long strides shortened so his Sookie could walk comfortably next to him. I stepped back as they entered, Eric with the baby first and then the other Sookie.

Eric made to open his mouth, but she saw me before he could say a single world. Instead the only sound was her gasp of shock.

"Jesus Christ, Shepherd of Judea!"


	3. Chapter 3

_**A/N:**__ Thank you guys so, so much for the lovely responses to this story! I've been sick with the flu and they've been a big ol' bright spot in my semi-conscious week! _

_Thanks as always to my beta __**Northman Maille**__. She is amazing and I can't thank her enough for everything she does! _

_**Disclaimer:**__ I don't own them…._

What is variable in the vast universe and what isn't would be quite interesting to catalogue. For instance, it seems that in another reality Eric Northman can not only be a Human, but can be born in modern times, an ocean away and yet still manage to end up in bum-fuck Louisiana, utterly infatuated with a busty, blonde waitress.

It seemed the manners Gran instilled in me were another 'universal constant' if the way other Sookie rushed into the kitchen to make us all something was any indication. A few minutes later she breathlessly brought a tray over flowing with sandwiches and sweet tea into the living room, where Eric and I waited. Putting it down on the coffee table she told me to please help myself, before sitting next to her husband.

Other Sookie looked at her Eric, taking his hand even before she'd fully settled into her seat, and then at me before opening and closing her mouth several times. It was clear she had no idea what to say so instead she just plastered a smile on her face. A smile I'd know anywhere: the 'Crazy Sookie' smile.

It was weird, I felt as though I was looking in a mirror and yet it was so clear I wasn't. All of her mannerisms, all of her gestures were mine to a tee, but she was sitting across from me with a Human Eric and napping just down the hall was their beautiful, living, breathing, perfect child. What she had I never could and vice versa. It was all so confusing and frustrating it made my head pound all over again.

Taking a deep breath I launched into what would be the strangest story I'd ever had to tell anyone and, I'm sure, the strangest story they'd ever heard someone try to pass off as the truth.

"Um, so I'm also Sookie Stackhouse. I'm twenty-seven and I work as a waitress at Merlotte's and live in this house. I know Eric Northman but I'm not married to him. We are connected though. He…he isn't a Human where I'm from, not anymore anyway.

Where I come from Vampires aren't fictional, they really exist, along with Werewolves, Shapeshifters, Faries, Demons, Witches and I'm sure a whole bunch of other stuff too. I'm a telepath, I can read the minds of other Humans and Eric is a Vampire. He was turned a thousand years ago in Scandinavia, but he's been in America for a few centuries, as far as I can tell, and he's the Vampire Sheriff of Northern Louisiana right now." I could see the disbelief in their minds as well as on their faces. I knew that I'd have to pull out a parlor trick or two if I was going to get them to believe me.

"Sookie, you were feeling bad in the kitchen because you made sandwiches the way you like them but then you worried it might be rude to assume that just because I look like you, I'd like the same fixins you do. You also thought about how you didn't have anything else and you really need to get to Wal-Mart." Sookie's eyebrows raised in shock, but Eric wasn't buying it so easily so I proceeded to recount to him, item for item, Sookie's shopping list.

He finally started coming round when I made a note of the fact Sookie had put condoms on the list for the first time since they'd found out they were having April. The baby was starting to eat solid foods now which meant she would be nursing less and Sookie wanted to make sure that they were prepared _before_ her body went back its normal cycles. She loved April to pieces and loved being a mother more than she could say, but she was looking forward to, maybe someday soon, sleeping for more than four hours at a stretch and getting their once 'blissfully obscene' sex life back.

After a few more 'tricks' they seemed to accept I could, in fact, read their minds. It followed that since they were faced with a woman who looked exactly Sookie, and who could read their minds, they couldn't deny the _possibility_ of everything else I was telling them being true.

"Last night I was working at Merlotte's, there was a horrible thunder storm, lightning, wind and then all of the sudden the rain turned into hail. From there strange things started happening. Lightning struck the house and blew out my bedroom window. I saw shadows moving around in the room with me, and I freaked out and ran out of the house in my t-shirt, underwear, and nothing else.

I got hit by a falling branch running through the cemetery and when I woke up I was here. It looks like home and it smells like home, but clearly I don't belong here. I just don't know how to get back." I finished, feeling the panic rise up in me as I thought about the sheer impossibility of what happened, and the miniscule chance that I could figure out how to fix it.

The other Sookie and Eric looked at each other for a moment and then seemed to nod. They were both thinking the same thing. They'd felt the storm last night wasn't right too. They'd seen _something_ in their bedroom, a single dark shadow pressed against the wall. It appeared for only a moment or two just after a burst of lightning, screamed and then disappeared. It had frightened them both but they'd dismissed it out of hand, chalking it up to 'new parent lack of sleep'… until now. Turning back to me, the smile the other Sookie gave me was genuine this time.

"As crazy as it might sound, I believe you. I don't know that there's anything we can do to help you get back to where you belong, but we'll do whatever we can and until then you're welcome to stay with us."

I let out a breath I hadn't even known I was holding.

I was a big girl. I'd lived through a lot in the past couple of years. I knew if I had to I would be able to make it here just fine on my own, but it was a relief to know they wouldn't toss me out with nothing. Although I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. She was me and I would never have turned away a stranger in need. Even if it wouldn't have been a heinously unchristian act, Gran would never have forgiven me for it.

"Thank you." I told her trying to hold back tears, hoping that she could somehow sense my deep and honest gratitude.

The rest of the day passed about as uneventfully as it could, given the situation we all found ourselves in. I volunteered to help my other self clean up from lunch and Eric, realizing he wouldn't get much done if he left for work now, phoned his Pam to ask her to take care of things in Shreveport and instead went out to Wal-Mart to do that food shopping.

When April woke up from her nap, her mommy brought her into the kitchen where I'd been unloading the dishwasher and set her in her high chair. It had always been my experience that most babies woke up cranky from their midday naps. I didn't know why, but I couldn't really blame them, I'd never done well sleeping during the day either. But April wasn't a typical baby. At five and half months old she was a sweet, cherubic little ball of energy and when she stared between her mommy and me she gave only a briefly puzzled look before bursting into giggles of genuine happiness.

The mind of a child that young was difficult to understand. There was lots of emotion. They felt a hundred different things, very strongly, in the space of only minutes, but there was very little linear thought. I had caught children this young thinking one or two words repeatedly, and I knew they could understand a heck of a lot more than they were given credit for, but actual individual thoughts weren't present.

What I did get from April, clear as the day was long, was an intense, nearly overwhelming wave of affection as she looked at both of us. What she felt when she looked at me wasn't any different than what she felt when she looked at her mother. To her we were the same person and she loved us both with the same startling depth.

I'd only been in this child's presence for a short while but with each passing moment I found it harder and harder to not think of her as mine. I had to keep reminding myself, sternly, that this woman _wasn't _me, even if she was, and that her child wasn't mine…no matter how much I wished she could be. It was a bitter pill but I had to swallow the fact that April wasn't even a possibility for me.

"So why did you name her April?" I found myself asking as I watched the other Sookie clean up first the baby and then the highchair after a messy meal of rice cereal and mushy peaches. Other Sookie laughed wistfully remembering the reason as she picked the baby up for some cuddle time.

"Um…the short version is that she was born in April and we thought that was a lovely name." Sookie bit her lip and I knew there was more. "The long version is Gran named her at the hospital because Eric and I are both stubborn as mules and couldn't agree on anything even with seven months' notice.

We both agreed we wanted to name the baby after Gran if it was a girl the moment we knew I was pregnant. But Gran thought Adele was such an old fashioned name it would be better to pick something more modern and use that as a middle name. That turned out to be the last baby naming decision Eric and I could agree on.

Eric wanted all these proud Nordic names and I wanted all these genteel southern ones. He wanted Gerta and I wanted Vivian. He wanted Astrid and I wanted Annabelle. It went on like that for months. We were still arguing about it_ while_ I was delivering. Finally when the nurse came with the birth certificate Gran cut us both off before I could tell them her name was Virginia and Eric could tell them it was Gersemi or something else equally horrible. Gran told the woman to put down April, and then looked at us both and dared us to disagree. Well…you know Gran. You don't disagree with Gran!"

Yep, that I knew.

"How did she die where you're from? She went peacefully in her sleep three months ago here. It's been hard every day without her. If I didn't have Eric and April I don't know how I would even be standing right now. Jason…well I don't know what yours is like, but he's always more interested in how things affect him than anything else. He was next to useless, never even offered to help us put her things away or plan the service, not a thing. He was even mad she left Eric and me the house."

I felt my throat constrict when I thought back to Gran's death.

I hadn't dealt with her passing in the healthiest way. To this day I still did a lot of shoving down instead of grieving. Like most other things in my life, I told myself I'd deal with it tomorrow and then adamantly made sure that tomorrow never arrived. Looking at the other Sookie, I tried not to feel another stab of jealousy. Not only had Gran died happily after a long life, but she'd lived to see her great grandchild be born. This wasn't my life and it never could be. I needed to accept that and work at getting mine back. I had a good life. It was more complicated than the one this Sookie was living but it was worth living all the same.

"She…she was murdered. A serial killer who targeted women who dated Vampires tried to kill me. He broke into the house one night while I wasn't home and when he found Gran there instead he killed her." The last words came out as little more than a whisper, but before the tears could escape, the other Sookie wrapped her arms around me.

"I'm so sorry!" She said with genuine grief in her voice.

I nodded my head and just let myself feel comforted. It was hard not to be when the person touching you felt genuinely kindly toward you and it didn't hurt that little April was between us, feeling absolutely content as the middle of a mommy sandwich.

By the time Eric came back from the store it was almost dinner. I offered to cook so that other Sookie could have some family time. We ate around the table and they told me a little bit more about their lives and then it was time to put April down for the night. I was beyond touched when other Sookie let me kiss April goodnight, before they went into the nursery together to do their nighty night routine.

Left alone in the living room I began to think about what my options were for getting home. The first thing I needed to know was whether or not there really were no supernatural elements in this reality. The fact that Eric was Human and Sookie wasn't a telepath would suggest there weren't but I needed to go out tomorrow and see if I could find Sam and Holly. If Sam was a Human and Holly wasn't a witch than I figured I could safely assume that everyone here was plain old Human.

It wasn't lost on me that I was always whining about how much I hated the Supe world at home and yet, if there was no magic and no supernaturals here my chances of getting home would be much more remote. Before I could panic again, for the umpteenth time today, I felt something outside, something that shouldn't have been: a void. Without even thinking I shot up from the couch and went to the window.

It was past nine thirty and inky black outside. Without the floodlights I'd had installed as a security measure my ability to see didn't go much beyond the outline of Eric and Sookie's cars in the driveway, but I knew there was a Vampire out there.

Part of me wanted to rush outside, hoping it was somehow my Eric come to get me. He would have figured out I was gone by now, wouldn't he? He would be searching for me, right? He would want to get me back? But the thought struck me that, if it had been my Eric, he would have just rung the doorbell. Whoever was out there didn't want to make their presence known. What did that mean?

After five long minutes of waiting the void began to recede from my senses until it was finally far enough away I couldn't feel it anymore.

When April was finally asleep Sookie took me upstairs to one of the spare bedrooms. I didn't know what to expect since the upstairs in my version of the farmhouse had been badly in need of repair until Amelia moved in, but it turned out that both of the rooms up there were guest ready. Sookie told me Jason and Pam both had their own room ready and waiting for when they stayed over. I knew she'd taken me to Pam's room when I saw the frilly pink floral pattern that adorned the bedspread and curtains, and was again struck by the notion that some things just seemed as though they were set in stone.

"Thank you for everything Sookie. I know this is the last thing you ever expected to happen to y'all." I said, once she'd brought me clean towels. She smiled at me warmly just as she had all day.

"Please don't thank me Sookie. You're…me." She blushed at her inability to express everything correctly, but I could only laugh, we were in the same boat there.

I changed quickly into the nightgown Sookie left for me and got under the covers but, not surprisingly, sleep wouldn't find me. I'd always been terrible at 'turning off' under stress and this ranked right up there with the other stressful situations I'd endured in the last couple of years. I needed to calm down, but I didn't feel right doing any of the things I normally would to relax like running a bath or making a cup of tea. This wasn't my home after all, not really.

Instead I did something I never would have imagined doing before. I dropped my shields completely and opened my mind until I found the warm sweetness of April's brain downstairs. She was fast asleep in her crib, dreaming the kind of dreams only a tiny innocent could. There were bright colors swirling around in her head, pinks and yellows, shades of gold and turquoise and in the beautiful ocean of hues faces passed by, smiling with love and laughing with happiness. Her mind was so lovely and pure I wanted to stay there, in her little head, all night long, but before I could close my eyes and just let myself drift away the wind started to pick up outside.

Just like it had come on last night, the rain began to pelt the window, the wind began to howl outside and the feeling that something was just not right started to creep up on me again.

The first crack of lightning had just lit the sky when I turned my head from the creaking shutters to see it. A translucent figure standing in the middle of the room, its arm outstretched towards me.


	4. Chapter 4

_**A/N:**__ I just wanted to say thank you so much, for the lovely response to this story. I'm touched and blown away, all at the same time, that people are liking it so much! So we get a couple of answers this chapter, but there's still some more to go. I always end up talking too much (in real life too) so it looks as though this story will be six chapters now instead of five, but I promise we'll be getting the whole story soon!_

_Thanks so much to my beta, __**Northman Maille,**__ too! She beta'd this while sick with a bad stomach bug and I can't thank her enough! She's the raddest (if that's a word, if not I'm making it one now ;)_

_**Disclaimer:**__ I don't own them…I'm just giving Sookie a voyeurism kink! (It's good for her she's too much of a prude!)_

My voice had left me. My whole body had been reduced to one trembling mass of Jell-O that wouldn't respond to my brain's frantic command to run. Instead all I could do was cower on the bed, trying as hard as I could to make my body meld into the headboard, when I felt it.

A myriad of emotions flooded me. They didn't belong to me but I knew them just the same. I'd cursed them a thousand times since Rhodes, blamed them for inspiring emotions in me that I could never be sure were truly of my own creation. But in that second, as the shape started to take on more solidity, I had never been happier to feel the bond I had with _my_ Vampire more.

"Eric?" I whispered into the darkness, my voice barely audible above the crashing of thunder and the pelting of rain.

The figure shimmered again becoming more translucent for single second and then solidifying completely, a bright halo of light surrounding it. He smiled at me with a look of utter relief.

"Sookie, I found you." He said. He took a step towards me and I felt myself inching closer to the edge of the bed, desperate to be near him too. I nodded my head over and over again probably looking like a complete idiot but not caring a single wit.

"How?" I asked. We'd reached each other by then, Eric's knees touching the end of the bed and my whole body a single inch from falling off the mattress completely.

"Niall." He answered as his eyes raked over my body. Our bond told me that he wanted desperately to take me in his arms but, for some reason, he couldn't. "I came to you last night. I felt your nervousness and then your fright and then nothing. You were completely gone.

I flew to your house only to find the door wide open and the window in your bedroom smashed in. I thought you had been taken by an enemy. I followed your scent from the house into the cemetery but then it just ended. There were no other scents. I had no idea what happened to you.

I went to ground near the house and when I woke this evening Amelia had returned. When I told her what happened, she helped me do a reconstruction and we followed your trace back out to the cemetery. We saw you running, saw you get hit by the tree branch and then everything except or you went double for a moment, and when it righted itself you were gone.

Amelia told me what it looked like to her, that you had somehow been transported to…" He stopped there as though everything that happened last night was too strange to believe even for a thousand year old Vampire who'd probably seen everything.

"…to another reality." I finished for him.

"Yes." He nodded, relieved not to have to say it. "Even though she had guessed what happened, Amelia did not have enough magic to help me. I contacted your great grandfather. He is here with me now. He says he can bring you back but it is taking a great deal of his energy Sookie. You must take my hand at the exact moment I tell you to so I can pull you through. Do you understand?"

Part of me wanted to leap on top of him. Part of me wanted to take his hand and go back home and pretend that none of this had ever happened, but just before I could tell him to do it I remembered the void in the woods. I still didn't know if there were Supes in this reality or not, but the fact that something had been watching the house unnerved me. What if something was happening here that shouldn't be? What if they were in trouble and didn't even know it? The thought of leaving this Sookie and Eric, and especially April, to deal with what might happen alone…I couldn't do it. No matter how much the selfish part of me wanted to, I just couldn't, not after they'd taken me in, believed me, offered to help me when they didn't have to.

"Eric I can't leave here, not yet. This place, everyone here seems to be human …me, you, everyone. But I felt a void in the woods tonight. Something is going on here, I don't know what, but I can't leave until I'm sure they'll be okay. I just can't." I looked at him feeling utterly helpless and my heart nearly broke when I saw and felt the pain lance through him.

"Sookie, please! Whatever is happening there, it is no responsibility of yours. Take my hand and COME HOME." He entreated me with pleading eyes. I knew those eyes. He'd worn them when he stayed here with me and it was like my whole body was conditioned to respond to them. It took everything I had not to give in. When he realized that I wouldn't do it his face fell in the most heartrending way. "Lover please. I don't know how much longer Niall will be able to hold this portal open. You have to come with me!" His voice dropped to a whisper as though he couldn't believe he was going to admit what came next. "You can't leave me." He begged. "There is so much left unsaid between us, so much still uncertain, but you cannot leave me."

The sob that rent the quiet was my own. There _was_ so much that had been put off between us, memories that needed to be shared, feelings that had been pushed down for far too long. If I'd been unsure about it before, seeing this Sookie and her Eric so happy in love, proved it.

We would never be able to have a child together, my Eric and I, but the love they shared, we had shared it too, if only for a short while. I knew that down deep inside. I'd tried so hard to convince myself it had all been in my head, that I'd made more of it, in my grief at Eric forgetting, than there had actually been. But looking at him, so desperate for me to take his hand, I couldn't keep lying to myself. Eric and I had loved each other and now he remembered what was between us, maybe we could again, maybe we already did.

I still didn't know why he'd been ignoring me the past weeks, why he'd seemed to fall off the face of the earth since the takeover, but he was here now. He'd come after me. He'd found someone to bend the very fabric of space and time just to find me, to help get me back. What other woman alive could say that?

"I won't leave you Eric, I promise. I just can't go yet if there's going to be trouble. Please try to understand…Eric, they're us. A completely human version of us, but us just the same and they have a little girl, a baby. Eric, we have a child! She is so beautiful and so perfect, a tiny, exact replica of both of us, and when she looks at me, she thinks I'm her Mamma! She loves me and she trusts me to protect her. I can't leave until I know she's safe. Please tell me you understand? Just give me a little more time."

Eric looked at me hard for a moment and I could feel a thousand different emotions warring inside of him. I could feel his fear, his worry that I would get hurt. I could feel his frustration that I was putting myself on the line for people he considered worthless. He didn't care that they looked like us or were us, he only cared that I could get hurt here and if I did he wouldn't be able to help me. It wasn't worth the risk to him. He wanted to ignore my pleas and just pull me back against my will. But in the end I felt him capitulate, if somewhat bitterly.

He knew what kind of person I was. He knew I fought for those who were important to me, no matter what the danger. I could _feel_ how deeply he cared for that person. If he pulled me back now I would never forgive him, and while he cared more that I was alive than that he was in my good graces, he also knew he couldn't care for me the way he did, but then deny me the right to be who I was.

"Tomorrow night. Promise me Sookie, no matter what, tomorrow you will come home to me." His voice was like tempered steel and I knew that I could say anything I wanted, but one more day was all he would give me.

Part of me wanted to be angry. He was attempting to be a high handed bully across two universes, for God's sake! But if he cared for me because of the person I was, the good and the bad, then I had to do the same. Protecting those who mattered to him was a large part of who Eric was too and not being able to help me, not knowing what might be happening to me, it was probably driving him insane.

"I swear it." I said.

I wanted to say more. I wanted to tell him how much he meant to me, how much I'd cared for him and how much I still did. The need welled up in me so fierce and true, as he began to disappear, that I felt as though I was choking myself to hold it back. But I didn't want to say it like this, not as if it were a goodbye.

When his shade was completely gone I fell back on the bed, feeling more heartsick than I had in a long time. I'd almost gotten used to missing Eric since the night he'd woken with all of his memories, except the ones of us. I'd tried to convince myself I was doing just peachy without him, but that façade had been crumbling pretty steadily since Rhodes. Being able to feel him as though he were a part of my own body, but not being able to be near him the way I wanted to be, it had been crushing me slowly. It was only the fact he couldn't remember that had kept me away.

Now he did and it seemed like he wanted what I wanted. Except now I was somewhere else entirely and could very well end up getting myself into trouble where no one would be able to help me. Eric was right, it sometimes seemed as though I had no self-preservation instincts at all. And yet, what could I do? April needed me. I didn't know how I knew, but I knew the little girl downstairs, who was part me and part Eric, she needed me! I wondered, if Eric had only been able to see her, if he wouldn't have completely understood my conflict. I wanted to go, but I needed to stay. I wanted to stay, if only to be near her, even if I knew I didn't belong here. I had to help our daughter…_their_, theirdaughter, but I wanted to be with _my _Vampire. Everything was so messed up and confused_ and_ confusing!

I barely felt the sobs wracking me until they were so bad it felt like my whole body was hemorrhaging. I had to find a way to calm down or I knew I would hurt myself. The part of me that had been so brave and so selfless while I was refusing to go back seemed to abandon me completely, now that it was done and I was alone here again.

April's mind had soothed me before and I felt, just then, it was the only thing that could again. When I touched her tiny mind she was dreaming again… or still. This time I saw human Eric float through her dream, absolute adoration painting his features as he cooed doting nonsense to her. I saw human Sookie next, her devotion evident as she sung a lullaby. Then, suddenly I saw both she and I looking down on April, a memory from that very afternoon when they'd hugged me to make me feel better.

It was exactly what I needed to strengthen my resolve. In some small, strange way she was mine and if I knew there might be danger I had to stay and protect her. I would never forgive myself if something happened to her or to the people she loved.

As I relaxed, the other minds in the house became open to me. Just across the hall from April her mother and father lay safely in their bed, but unlike their precious daughter they weren't asleep. I knew that I should throw my shields back up. It wasn't fair or right of me to intrude on what was between them, but I couldn't help myself.

As I sunk into the other Sookie's mind I allowed myself to see through her eyes, to feel what she was feeling, hear what she was thinking. It was like a dream. A dream that I'd never dared to have, but that I couldn't look away from.

He was naked above her, the muscles in his arms and shoulders rippling with strain as he moved deeply within her. She was crying out, the feeling of his rock hard length inside her driving her crazy in a way no other man had ever been able to.

She clung to him, one hand fisted into the short strands of his golden hair, the other caressing its way down the endless hard plains of his back and torso until it came to rest on the globe of one perfect cheek. She gripped it hard, her nails sinking in to the firm flesh as she bolted up to crush the aching peaks of her breasts against his chest and he pushed her over the edge.

He felt her orgasm around his aching erection like the sweetest vice, squeezing and pulsing, willing his release out of him. He was powerless to refuse her, to resist the call of her body. He grabbed at the long hair, forcing her head back and taking her mouth in a lovingly brutal kiss, making her swallow his cries of ecstasy. She took them gratefully, her legs locking even tighter around his hips, grinding their bodies together, prolonging their pleasure for every precious second she could, determined to bring them both to the brink of insanity before her body would free his.

He fell to his elbows on top of her, their spent bodies reluctant to part, the sweat from their skin melding together as they breathed heavily. I could feel how she cherished the heavy weight of his body caging hers, and how he adored the feel of her lush curves captured beneath him.

He knew she was worried that her pregnancy had changed her body for the worse, but to him she had only become more beautiful, her body that much more intoxicating. He had always been wild for her, from the moment he'd seen her gyrating on the dance floor of his club. But now, now that he'd seen her body change to shelter and protect his growing child, he could barely restrain the primal instinct to throw her to the ground and burry himself inside of her every time she was near.

As they whispered words of love and passion to each other, exciting one another again, even after their shattering orgasms only minutes before, I found the will to pull my shields back up. Part of me felt guilty for intruding on their privacy the way I had, the other part of me just felt hot and achy and desperately in need of my Eric. I knew how she felt, it was the way I'd felt when Eric had made love to me all those months ago in this very house. Part of me knew it was how my Eric felt when he had been deep inside me too.

Tomorrow I would do my best to help them and then I would go home to my vampire and stop all the foolishness that had been keeping us apart.


	5. Chapter 5

_**A/N:**__ I just wanted to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who's been reviewing this story! I was so excited when I read the reviews from last chapter, so many good guesses about who the void in the woods is and how it will end! So thank you guys so much! Y'all rock!_

_And of course I have to thank my most awesomest beta (she doesn't beta my A/N's, hence the use of words that don't exist) __**Northman Maille**__! I a total spaz and still you speak to me! _

_**Disclaimer:**__ I own nothing…it's just that thinking of Eric with a baby gets my ovaries sighing._

I woke to the smells of bacon, eggs, biscuits and coffee, or in my world: Heaven on Earth! I hadn't woken to these smells since my Gran passed and it made me giddy. Since the nightgown the other Sookie gave me was pretty modest (down past my knees, up to my neck, and roomy) I didn't think twice before padding out of my room and down the stairs.

I stopped short at the sight that greeted me as I entered the kitchen though. It was so beautiful and so unexpected, it had me instantly breathless. Nothing in my reality could have ever prepared me for it. Standing over the stove, spatula in one hand and wide eyed, giggly baby in the other, swaying gently and singing along perfectly to the strains of Elvis's "Can't Help Falling in Love" coming from his IPod, was Eric.

Every note was perfect in his deep, molasses dark baritone, but even if he'd been strangling cats it wouldn't have mattered. It was the way he held her so protectively from his grand height, the way she looked at him with her wide, adoring eyes as _her_ Daddy swayed with her around the kitchen. She was only a baby and already he was her hero, larger than life and more awesome than any other man could ever hope to be.

I wanted to remember this moment for the rest of my life, even if I wasn't sure whether what I was feeling right then was happiness or pain.

_God never gives us a trial we can't withstand_, my Gran always used to say when I would bemoan my lot in life. I think I believed her too. After all I wasn't crazy despite all the voices. But looking at this beautiful, human version of the Vampire I knew, the Vampire I…loved, cuddling _our_ baby in our kitchen, under a sun he would never see, in a life we would never have, I just wanted to scream at how unfair it all was! If Gran were in front of me right now, so help me, I think I'd have called her out for a liar and told her that, if all this wasn't a dream then it was the ultimate proof that God was just plain cruel!

I didn't know if I made a sound as I thought that or not, but suddenly Eric turned around and saw me there. For one single second he smiled at me as though I was the sun itself, until his eyes wandered down from mine and saw what I was wearing, then it was as if the clouds rolled in. The smile dropped from Eric's face to be replaced almost instantly with a look of…irritation.

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt." I said, taking the neck of my nightgown between my fingers and worrying it as I tried not to feel like the world's most horrible peeping tom.

"No, please don't apologize. I just got…confused for a second." He gritted out the last, before motioning to the table with the hand still holding the spatula. "Sit, I'll fix you a plate." He ordered, turning back around, putting the spatula aside to grab utensils and pour me a cup of coffee.

"Thank you." I said gratefully as he handed everything to me, one at a time. "Where's Sookie?" My question got me another grimace but he answered anyway.

"She was up a few times in the middle of the night with April. I told her to stay in bed. She'll be out in a few minutes though I'm sure." He put April into her high chair and began feeding her as I started eating. We sat in silence, except for the sounds of April gurgling, for a few long moments before he turned to me and pinned me with an uncomfortable look. He wanted to ask me something, I could tell, but he was hesitant.

"What am I like, where you're from?" He finally questioned. I think I had rarely been more grateful for my telepathy than I was at that moment. If I hadn't known it was coming I probably would have choked on my biscuit. I knew very well and good I was welcome in this house because of Sookie. It wasn't that Eric was a bad person, not at all, it was just that he didn't know why I was here or what it meant and he was frightened for his family. They came first to him, everything else was just degrees of inconsequential.

"Actually, it's a little startling how much like him you are." His raised eyebrow told me he didn't really buy that, but I plowed on anyway. "You're both incredibly protective of the ones you love, which is maybe why you don't give your love or your trust often. You're both single minded when it comes to getting what you want and you both like jeans and t-shirts even if you could be wearing Armani and Gucci all day long." Apparently I'd said something right, because he laughed at that.

"That's pretty astute, you haven't known me that long." He said, forking another bite of eggs for the baby.

"Maybe not," I laughed back, "but I saw your half of the closet…and I've known my Eric for a bit now." He was silent for a moment.

"Your Eric. Is that just to keep us straight, or does it mean something more?" I had no idea where that question came from, since I'd told them yesterday that Eric and I were not romantically involved, at least not anymore, but when I probed his mind, it made perfect sense to him. Eric loved Sookie and Sookie loved Eric. It wasn't just the way it was, it was the way it was_ supposed_ to be. He wanted to know if it was that way for us too, and if not why. Yep, they were startlingly alike.

I probably should have said something about how we weren't there yet, or how we cared for each other but things were complicated, or how it works a little differently when 'Eric' is a thousand year old Vampire and not just a hot thirty-something from Sweden. But instead I answered him honestly, and I didn't think for a second if _my_ Eric were here to listen in he would have disagreed with anything I was about to say.

"Something more." I answered. "I love him. I think he loves me. When I get back we're gonna work it out." That seemed to satisfy him and he nodded at me.

Just then the other Sookie came into the kitchen, a tired smile on her face. She walked over to Eric, leaning down to kiss him where he sat and then put a gentle buss on the top of April's head before going over and pouring herself a cup of coffee. Sitting between Eric and I she smiled slightly at me before disappearing into her cup for a few minutes. I wasn't in the least bit offended, I knew I was barely functional and definitely incapable of speech before my first cup.

"I'm gonna head to work." Eric said, after he'd finished feeding the baby. "Pam will kill me if I don't get the quarterly inventory done before things start to get crazy with the holidays." He was out of his chair and leaning in to give his Sookie another kiss when I all but hopped out of my chair.

"No!" I blurted. They both looked at me as though I was insane. "Um, what I mean is, maybe you should stay here today." Eric's eyebrow went right up to touch his hairline at that. Letting out a harrumph I explained the void in the woods and the visit from my Eric the night before. I'd been intending to let everyone eat and caffeinate first, but clearly it couldn't wait. "I just don't think it's safe, not until I know whether or not there are any Supernaturals in your world. Then we'll know if we should be worried about it or not." I finished. Eric and Sookie just looked at each other and then Eric kissed her again.

"Voids to you are Vampires right?" I nodded my head. "Okay so they can't come out until after the sun goes down right? It should be fine then. If you really worried, I'll get my inventory done and be back before sunset, Pam can handle the actual club hours on her own for a little while longer." I smiled at him then. I don't know why except that I was grateful he believed me. It was my experience that humans rarely believed what I could do, even in my world where there were Vampires and Shifters and Werewolves to prove that 'other' stuff was out there.

"Thank you, for taking me seriously." I said, my voice a little softer and more watery than I'd meant for it to be. Eric just snorted in a very Eric way.

"You're a mind reading version of my wife who comes from a place where I'm supposedly a thousand year old Vampire. The fact that you're here proves there's weird stuff going on. I'd feel better erring on the side of caution until everyone is back where they belong. So while I'm gone you guys figure out if anyone in our world is hiding any interesting alter egos or if we're all just plain, boring humans and then we can go from there when I get home." With that Eric was gone.

"I swear, if that man isn't giving orders he's not breathing." The other me said, shaking her head and smiling indulgently. I had to laugh at that.

"Actually even if he's not breathing he's still giving orders." It took her a moment, but when she got my joke she actually laughed, loud and hard.

"So, how do we figure out if there are any supernaturals in this world?" She asked me as she pulled April out of her highchair.

"Sam Merlotte still own a bar here?" I asked her. She smiled at the mention of Sam.

"He sure does, I used to waitress there before Eric and I got married. You said you still work for him right?" We walked to April's nursery and she began changing her diaper and dressing her for the day.

"Yep, he's a shape shifter in my world. If he's not in yours I think it's pretty safe to assume it's not just you and Eric it's everybody. Oh, I almost forgot," I suddenly had a flashback to yesterday when I'd woken up with Eric in the bedroom, "Eric said that Selah Compton called him. Does that mean that she's married to Bill Compton?" Sookie nodded her head.

"Yep, they've been married for about two years." She said, a funny expression crossing her face. I was pretty sure I knew what it meant but I'd ask instead of fishing in her head.

"He's a Vampire where I'm from too. You're sure he couldn't be one here, right?" Other Sookie just laughed.

"As much as I would have loved to watch Bill Compton fry in the sun at one point, no, I can assure you that he's not a Vampire." I had to laugh at that.

"Wow, that's pretty harsh." I prodded. Sookie just laughed a little again and I got a clear flash of Bill toasting slowly while she did.

"We used to date. Obviously his family lives across the cemetery, he's a few years older than me. I grew up with a little bit of a crush on him. Anyway he went away to college and when he came back he started to show an interest in me. I was flattered, we started dating, then his ex-girlfriend from college, Lorena, came to see him, out of the blue, and suddenly he dumped me and got engaged to her in like, five seconds. Turns out she was only after his money, which his parents cut off when they met her and realized she was nothing but a gold digger.

No money meant no Lorena, she just up and left as quickly as she'd come. Afterwards, he begged me to take him back, kept making up these wild stories about how he had to leave me for her. First it was because she threatened me then it was because she was holding something mysterious over him, then it was a million other things and God he still loved me more than anything, so he said, but by that time I was done.

The only reason I would even talk to him for a while is because it was him who suggested that we go to Shreveport for my twenty-first birthday party. Of course by the time my party came along he was uninvited to it, but still. Turns out Eric owned the club Bill wanted to go to and well once I met Eric…there's no comparing them is there?" I snorted at that.

"Not if you're trying to be nice to Bill no." Sookie laughed again and nodded her head in total agreement.

"Selah can come across as a stuck up miss some of the time, but she's good for him and they're happy together, which means he isn't trying to cause problems for me. So it's all good." I could only be happy for her.

I wished my Bill would find someone to help him get over me. I remembered the night of the takeover and his loud and badly timed declaration that he loved me enough to die for me. It probably would have been more touching if it hadn't been in front of someone who would have been all too happy to make that happen.

I'd realized that night how much I'd been putting my relationship with Bill on a pedestal. He'd tried to make Eric look bad for not saying the same thing, but I'd seen through it. Eric wouldn't die for me, at least not needlessly, and I didn't want him to. I wanted him to fight for me and I wanted him to live for me, and those things he'd already done, in spades, and I knew he would do them again.

As we drove out to Merlotte's I told her all about my version of the 'Bill story'. It was a bit bloodier and a lot scarier but by the end of it we were on the same page. We both would have been happy to have never met Bill Compton except for the fact that he introduced us to the man we were meant to be with.

It was strange, as I talked to her and, if I'm honest, to him to, I found myself making that leap with more and more ease. I loved Eric. I loved him, not just in our past, not just when he had amnesia, now too. And by the time we got to the bar I was almost hoping that I'd find that Sam was just like he was where I was from. Then I could stop worrying, go home to my Vampire, try to forget about the little girl we'd never have and live my life.

.(~*~).

When we got to Merlotte's, Sookie decided to stay in the car while I ordered two lunches to go. I volunteered to take April in with me since I knew it would look weird for her to be without the baby. It was a legit reason, but I also just wanted to hold her for a little bit too.

April cooed and looked around curiously as we walked in. She was totally content with me and I found I secretly loved everyone looking at me and not thinking I was weird or strange. They all just thought I was this adorable little girl's mommy and that we were a cute, cute pair.

Well except for a few of the women my age who all thought April was cute, but that her Daddy was way cuter and frankly I didn't deserve either of them. Maybe it wasn't just my being a telepath then. Maybe there were just haters everywhere.

I walked up to the bar and before I could even ask, Sam popped up from behind it with an empty liquor box in his hand and a wide, happy smile on his face.

"Hey Sookie, long time no see. What brings you here today?" He asked before turning to April and making silly faces.

"I just thought I'd order some lunch to take away. I had a hankering for burgers and no one makes a burger like you Sam." I smiled back. He seemed to light at my praise and gestured for me to sit at the empty bar while he put in my order.

When he came back we made small talk and once he'd gotten on a suitable roll, I opened my mind and focused on him. I guess I'd been expecting it to be hard to hear him, but he came in loud and clear. He was thinking about how pretty I looked today, how much he missed seeing me every day, and how he was happy I looked so happy even if he really wasn't thrilled about who was making me happy. I knew where his mind was headed then and when I got a clear picture of Eric I knew he was about to start bashing my husband…Sookie's husband…Eric.

Instead of listening to something I knew was going to upset me, I scanned the dining room. The bar was full, waitresses were buzzing about and there in the back, working the pool tables was Holly. Jackpot! Nodding in all the appropriate places and making all the proper sounds of interest for Sam, I focused in on her. It was the same. She came in loud and clear, no weird wavy thoughts or color tinged emotions like I normally got from witches. Sam was plain old human and so was Holly.

After a few more minutes of small talk my burgers were ready and I thanked Sam, politely dodging his offer to help me carry everything out to the car, where other Sookie was hiding, and rushed out of the bar.

"So? How'd it go?" She asked when I had April in her car seat and was settling into my own.

"They're human." I answered. Sookie's face fell at that.

"Then you think that void in the woods shouldn't have been there." She asked, fear creeping into her voice.

"No. Actually even if there were supernaturals and they were just hiding from Humans still I would be nervous about a Vampire lurking in your woods, but I'm even more so now." She blanched a little at that.

"What should we do?" I told her everything I knew about Vampires on the way back home. Their strengths, their weaknesses, how they couldn't get in without an invite, but how they could glamour one in a second. "Maybe it's nothing." She finally said although I could hear in her head I had pretty much scared her witless.

"Maybe you're right. If nothing happens again tonight maybe you don't have to worry about it." I tried to reassure her. Part of me hoped that something would happen tonight because at least I'd be there to help them, the other part of me just hoped that it was all a fluke or a mistake and the Vampire would never come back.

As we pulled up the drive in front of the farmhouse other Sookie turned to me, her eyes big and blue and scared.

"Thank you for staying when you didn't have to, Sookie. It means the world to me." She whispered. Taking her hand in mine I squeezed it gently.

"It's the least I could do. You didn't have to believe me or offer to help me either. There are a lot of other people who wouldn't have." Without warning she hugged me and I couldn't help but hug her back.

"Thank you all the same."

The rest of the afternoon passed peacefully and we got a call from Eric around five fifteen saying that he was done and coming home. Sookie let out a breath I knew she'd been holding since we'd left Merlotte's, but it turned out she let it out to soon. Eric called again at six to say there was an accident on the highway and traffic was backed up and barely moving almost the entire way home.

Seven o'clock came and went and he still wasn't home and then seven-thirty and the sun began to set. Eric had been calling every half hour to give us updates and sure enough he called again at eight. He was almost home, cranky, tired, and hungry, but just fine. He and Sookie were laughing about something together when all of the sudden I heard her scream. Rushing into the living room from where I'd been playing with April in the nursery I saw her clutching the phone a look of terror on her face.

"Eric? Eric!" she yelled. When she turned to me she was as white as a sheet. "There was a thumping sound and then he screamed and then…nothing!"


	6. Chapter 6

_**A/N:**__ Okay last chapter. I'm putting all my cards on the table and I hope you like my hand! _

_Thank you everyone who's reviewed, favorited and alerted this story. I am truly overwhelmed and I hope the ending lives up._

_And thanks as always to my beta __**Northman Maille**__! You are so the best, I don't even know how to tell you!_

_**Disclaimer:**__ I own nothing, but if given the choice I'll always chose "Can't Help Falling in Love" over "Love Me Tender"_

"Oh God, Eric!" Other Sookie cried one last time before throwing the phone heedlessly on the floor and bolting for the door. I barely caught her and by the time I did she was already halfway outside.

"Sookie wait! You can't just go running off, you don't even know where Eric is." I tried to reason with her, but it was clear she wanted none of it. She just looked at me with an expression of horrified disbelief.

"I DON'T CARE!" She yelled. "Eric is in trouble I have to help him! I have to do something!" She was all but hysterical now, trying to wrench her arm out of my grasp and pulling hard enough to hurt us both. I didn't know how to tell her I doubted we'd have to go looking Eric. The void in the woods last night, something suddenly happening to Eric just now after the sun had set, it couldn't possibly be a coincidence.

Sure enough I'd barely opened my mouth to try and explain when something hit the ground hard on the front lawn. Other Sookie and I stopped struggling against each other. Instead we just stared through the open doorway, shocked dumb, both of us barely able to understand what we were seeing.

My mind pulsed with the thoughts of Sookie, who watched the scene in front of her with a kind of disbelieving terror, suddenly convinced this was all some horrific dream she just needed to find a way to wake up from. I heard the mental chanting of her Eric too. He was praying silently to anyone who might listen to keep his wife and daughter safe from the monster who clutched him by the throat, with careless cruelty, squeezing hard enough to draw blood with his fingernails.

And I felt the pulsing void of the Vampire who held him captive. The same Vampire who must have been in the woods last night. The Vampire who, besides his clothing and the length of his hair, was the exact mirror image of the Human he held so pitilessly.

Eric.

My mind was so busy refusing to believe what my eyes were seeing that the scene in front of me _still_ made no sense.

Eric was the void.

How could that be? How could he have been the void in the woods last night _and_ have visited me in my bedroom just afterwards, claiming to have only enough power to pull me through whatever mysterious portal led home? And why would he want to hurt his Human self like this? It was beyond my ability to process.

"Eric, what are you doing?" I finally found the voice to ask.

The Vampire just smiled at me, his razor sharp fangs on display as he began to climb the porch steps, dragging his Human counterpart with him. He stopped just short of the doorway, and the magical barrier that must have been in his way, staring directly at me.

"Invite me in." He ordered, dragging his prisoner in front of him. As Human Eric let out a pained groan, the only noise he'd made so far, I understood the Vampire's threat clearly. We invited him in or he would kill his Human version.

The other Sookie looked at me with helpless eyes. I knew she was too frightened and confounded to process anything right now. Her upbringing, in this totally Human world, left her at the worst kind of disadvantage to deal with what was happening. I squeezed her hand, which I was still holding, hoping to give her some comfort as I opened my mouth to speak.

"Eric Northman, come in." I all but whispered, my voice shaking slightly as I uttered words I'd said many, many times before, but never with such fear.

The Vampire smiled another terrifying smile before stepping over the threshold and into the house. He still refused to release Human Eric, but I saw his grip slacken just a tiny bit and sure enough the sounds of Eric gasping for precious air came only a second later. Now we all simply stared at each other, two Sookies and two Erics, standing across the length of the living room, only one of us really knowing what was going on.

Now that my initial surprise had passed I took in the sight of the Vampire in front of me and really looked at him. I looked beyond the mere fact that he wore my Eric's face, and realized two things that lead to only one, inevitable conclusion. One I would never have guessed, but suddenly made sickeningly perfect sense.

The first was Vampire Eric's dress. All in all, it wasn't the most outrageous outfit I'd ever seen Eric wear, but the tight, blood red leather pants and matching knee length leather jacket he wore with it, his sculpted chest bare and on full display beneath, was the kind of thing I would never have expected to see him in outside of Fangtasia's walls. Even more inexplicable than his clothes though, were his eyes.

On first glance they were the same beautiful, artic shade of blue as the Human Eric he was still choking, but the more I looked at them the more I saw it…a vast empty expanse of nothing. Human Eric's eyes were icy in their beauty, just like my Eric's, but this Vampire's eyes were simply ice. No emotion, no kindness, no vestige of humanity or compassion lived behind them. Instead, they were frozen windows to the rotted soul of a monster.

"You're not my Vampire Eric are you?" I asked, already knowing the answer in my heart, but needing to hear him say it anyway, if only to keep myself from feeling as though I was falling off the jagged precipice that had become sanity. His eyes focused in on me then, the pupils narrowing like a lion assessing the best way to fell its prey.

"No." He answered simply, turning his attention back to where it had been resting the whole time: on Human Sookie.

"Why are you here?" I questioned again. The Vampire turned back to me. His face was devoid of expression, but I saw the vein in his jaw tick just once and it surprised me to realize I could faintly feel his emotions. He was annoyed at me, though for what I had no clue.

"I am here for Sookie." He answered me, his head jerking slightly in the direction of the other me who still stood clutching my hand.

She'd said nothing so far and even now she made no response to his frightening words. Probing her mind I realized she seemed to be in shock. The only thing that went through her head was a steady chant that this could _NOT_ be happening as her eyes stayed intently focused on her husband.

"I don't understand." I said, not knowing what to do and so hoping to keep him talking long enough to figure out how to get him to release his prisoner. "And why can I feel you?" I threw that one in as well since it would hopefully lead to more talking.

"My blood is my blood, no matter which me gives it to you. As long you have exchanged blood with another Vampire version of me our bond functions." He explained, his tone betraying something like boredom at my obviously insultingly ignorant question.

"Why are you here?" I pushed again.

He sighed heavily at that and I felt my fear ratchet up a little further. He was becoming extremely irritated by my tiresome questions and an irritated Vampire was a dangerous Vampire. Since this one was already terrifyingly dangerous, pushing him past his patience would only making things worse for all of us.

"I have already told you, I am here for her."

"Then why am I here?" I hoped one more question wouldn't be one question too many. I felt an inkling of indulgence in his blood as he shrugged his shoulders with all the innate elegance every Eric must possess.

"You're being here is an accident." He answered. "Your reality and this one were too close together when my servant cast the spell which brought me here. You were caught up in it as well, but I have no use for you." He said the last dismissively and again his entire being seemed to focus on Human Sookie.

I felt her shiver and all of the sudden it was as if her will seemed to swim up from the sea of confusion she'd been in. When she spoke though it was clear she was still focused on only one thing.

"Please," she begged, "please don't hurt him anymore." Her words were shaky and her eyes went wide and huge, pleading with her husband's captor. My own had remained fixed on the Vampire the whole time and for one single second, I might otherwise have missed, I thought I saw something soft pass behind his eyes. It was gone as fast as it had come though, and they once again reset into their emotionless glare.

"That is entirely up to you, Sookie. You hold his fate and the fate of your infant in your hands this night. If you come with me and promise to remain with me willingly then I will let them live. If you fight me and refuse, then I will kill them both and take you anyway." His words held zero inflection as he said them and I could only shiver as I realized it made no difference to him whatsoever if he killed two people tonight, one just a baby. He threatened it because knew it would make a huge difference to her.

"Why do you want her?" I interjected again, desperation lacing my voice. I felt his annoyance spike once more.

"I am growing tired of your inquisitiveness." His voice came out a threatening growl and I couldn't help the shiver that went through me.

"Where is your Sookie?" I couldn't help it. If he was from another alternate universe than shouldn't he have a Sookie of his own?

Pain lanced through him hot and hard at my question, like the metal of a molten blade and it shocked me. In the brief time he'd been here I hadn't suspected for a second he would be capable of feeling anything so intensely.

"She is dead." I felt his shock at deigning to answer me. He wasn't accustomed to explaining himself to_ anyone_, let alone an infuriating Human. We were both shocked, I think, when he went on. "Where I am from only Sookie's father was killed by the water Fairies, her mother lived. The stress of losing her husband coupled with her inherent fear of Sookie's telepathy caused her to decide to commit the girl to a mental institution when she was only eight. Sookie took her own life four years later…before we could ever meet. " Anger seemed to radiate from him like a visible aura then and I felt that he was close to losing his temper. Still I tried to keep him talking.

I had no delusions now that I could get him to free Human Eric. At this point I knew that was a pipe dream, but it well past sunset by now and I knew _my_ Eric would be coming for me soon. He might be able to help us. I prayed he would. He was the only one who would be any kind of a match for this other Vampire version of himself.

"Then how do you know about Sookie at all? How did you get here?" This time I'd done it. He made a nasty hissing sound and advanced on me, but just when I feared he might try and reach for me with his other hand, he stopped short and his whole body seemed to shudder.

"That will be Niall." He said shaking it off. "It's time for us to go little one." He said, reaching over with lightening quick speed and taking the other Sookie by the hand.

The other Sookie screamed in fright and started to struggle, but it was even less useful than when she'd tried to fight me. I still didn't entirely understand what was going on, but just then I heard April start to cry from her crib where I'd left her.

I knew then, hearing her voice, that I couldn't let this monster take her mother or kill her father, no matter whose face he wore. I had to do something. Closing my eyes, barely believing what I was about to say, I just let the words fall out before I could stop myself.

"Wait!" I shrieked. "Take me instead." Vampire Eric stopped and turned back to me eyes narrowed in suspicion. I swallowed hard but stood my ground.

"You are a telepath?" He asked me, although he sounded pretty confident of the answer.

"Yes." I nodded.

"Then you cannot be glamoured. You will not do." His words were again said dismissively, so dismissively that he was actually turning away from me again even before he was finished speaking.

"Why not? Your Sookie must have been a telepath. I can help you. You must know how valuable my talent can be." I was beyond desperate at this point.

April's cries had become screams as the minutes passed and no one came to her, and I could see that Human Eric was starting to turn an alarming shade of blue. Human Sookie, had stopped struggling too, seeing how it only made the Vampire holding her and her husband squeeze his neck even tighter, but I could see tears streaming down her face.

"I do not care about your ability." He snarled at me. "What I want is the love I am owed. I have walked this earth a thousand years alone, a creature of death and darkness. Almost all the other versions of myself have done the same and yet they have been gifted with one of you!" He shook Sookie by the arm slightly in emphasis, "A being of pure light to love them. Why?

Why am I condemned to walk alone while all the others find happiness? Why have I been left to suffer and not them? I have _seen_ them! Niall has shown them to me in his greedy bid to win freedom from his slavery to me. Eric after Eric, ruthless and bloodthirsty as I, but given happiness. I will not be cheated out of what is rightfully mine!" He was so angry now he was actually taking shallow breaths after every sentence and his fangs were dripping with saliva. He was the single most frightening thing I had ever seen and yet the cries of the little girl down the hall demanded that I not back down.

"And so you think if you take a completely Human version of Sookie you can simply glamour her into forgetting about her family and loving you instead?" Even before the words tumbled out of my mouth, I knew they were true.

"And of course there is the added benefit that he is too weak to stop me from taking her." He shook Human Eric, who looked as though he was close to losing consciousness at this point, in demonstration of his physical inferiority.

"What if I promise to cooperate?" I saw Vampire Eric cock his head in a gesture of curiosity.

I was desperate now, not just for him to release Human Sookie and Eric but for my Eric to come. I just had to hold him off long enough for my Eric to arrive, that's all. I'd say or do anything I had to, but I knew I was running out of time. Seeing him contemplate my words I hurried on.

"You can't glamour her into loving you. Love doesn't work that way. But I'll come with you if you let them go and I promise to love you." I thought of my Eric as I said those words, hoping that if I thought them about my Vampire, this one wouldn't read them as a deception.

"If glamour cannot make her love me than why should I believe you can?" He asked. I could sense he was at least interested in my offer now, interested enough to hold off just a little longer. Taking a deep breath I tried my hardest to sell my bargain.

"She has a husband and a child. If you take her away from them she will never forgive you and her real heart will always be with them. You can't keep her glamoured every second of every day, you know that. And once you bond to her you'll know every moment her mind is her own she'll be hating you.

I…I have nothing. I will never be able to have a child without passing on my ability, my Eric and I have bonded but we aren't together. But he's a Vampire just like you. I know who and what you are and I can love you." The words burned me as I said them.

My Eric might also be a Vampire but that was where the similarities between them ended. _My_ Eric would never stalk the weakest of the weak and prey on them to meet his own selfish desires. I knew he was capable of it, but my Eric cherished his honor and there was no honor in hurting someone who couldn't defend themselves. It was honor, among other things, that this this version of him was completely without.

Would this Eric believe me or would he sense the lie in my words? I was terrified. I knew that I shouldn't be able to mislead him. But just after I finished speaking I saw him shudder from head to toe again. It appeared _his_ Niall was telling him to hurry. It was a lucky distraction, because either he hadn't sensed my deception, or he'd been too distracted by whatever Niall did to contact him that he missed it. He only looked at me with those contemplative eyes for one long moment more before dropping both Human Sookie and Eric to the floor and streaking over to grab me instead.

I heard the sounds of Human Eric gasping for air now that he could finally fully breathe and I vaguely saw them crawl to each other, wrapping their arms around one another in comfort. But truly, the only thing I could really concentrate on was the monster who now began dragging me out of the house. Looking outside I saw the full moon and clear night sky and sent up a prayer that if my Eric didn't come here soon he would be able to find me wherever I was.

I was so distracted by my own terrified thoughts that I didn't hear Human Eric's mind until it was too late.

I had no idea why he did it. He had treated me, in the past two days, with a kind of wary disinterest always sure to keep a physical and mental distance between us, to keep me separate in his mind and heart from his wife. But as he watched this monster, who wore his face, pulling me out of the house, and to what he thought would be a lifetime of suffering and servitude, something in him snapped.

The idea of Sookie, _any _Sookie being forced to go with this Vampire was unfathomable to him and he acted then on pure instinct, not thinking or reasoning before he grabbed a poker from its home by the fireplace and charged at his Vampire self.

I could only scream as Vampire Eric threw me off to the side and turned on his Human version. He batted the poker out of Human Eric's hand like anyone would swat at a fly and then grabbed him once more by his bruised throat. This time he didn't choke though, he simply pulled Human Eric near and plunged his fangs deep into his neck, sucking hard and making his victim scream out in pain.

The other Sookie cried out at the sight of her husband being hurt and lunged at both of the Erics, trying desperately to free him. It was useless. Even with half his attention on his meal, Vampire Eric was able to throw her off with ease and I heard her hit the wall. Hard.

All of this happened as I lay on the floor, where I'd been thrown into the small table by the door. The table had smashed to pieces under me and I could feel splinters of wood lodged everywhere under my skin. I paid them no mind. Instead I concentrated all my effort on the leg of the table which now lay broken off beside me. Picking it up, I got to my feet. I didn't think, I didn't plan, I knew I couldn't or he'd feel it.

I could have rescinded his invitation, but I knew if I did he'd escape back to wherever he came from and lay in wait to hurt Eric and Sookie again, if not this Eric and Sookie than another. It was clear he would never stop until he had what he wanted or unless someone stopped him first.

So I charged him. I ran with all my might, the makeshift stake in my hand. His back was to me now as he continued to drain Human Eric and without a single moment of hesitation I plunged the leg of the table into his back pushing as hard as I could, making sure it went through to the other side.

With a roar of astonished anguish Vampire Eric fell to pieces, his body collapsing, already flaking to ash before he hit the floor. Human Eric, suddenly free of the Vampire who'd been holding him collapsed onto the floor as well. For a single second I stood there stunned, the realization that I could be the only person left alive in the room tugging at the edges of my consciousness but not quite sinking in.

I went down on my knees then, my legs half in the pile of Vampire ash that had been a version of the man I loved and grabbed the other, Human version of him, hauling his upper body into my lap. I put my hands over the artery in his neck trying desperately to feel a pulse, but where it should have been there was nothing. Laying my head over his chest I heard the silence where his heart should have beat and where his mind had been there was only empty space. He was dead.

Turning to Sookie, I saw her body crumpled on the floor next to the wall she'd been thrown into. I didn't bother to go to her though, the trail of her blood and brain matter that streaked down the wall was proof enough that she too was dead.

I vaguely felt the tears streaming down my face as the reality of things finally began to set in. But before I could think too much I heard it: the first crack of thunder that signaled a storm coming on. I didn't even have to look outside to know it would start to hail soon and the room would start to fill with other worldly shadows.

I'd tried so hard to help them, but in the end it had all been for nothing. I didn't know if other Sookie would have tried to reassure me she was happier with this fate than the one that had been in store for her. Would living as the glamoured slave of a monster who looked like her husband have been better or worse than death? Would her Eric have thanked me or cursed me? No matter what I knew his death had been inevitable. Even if I hadn't been here he would never have meekly allowed the other him to take his wife and the evil version of Eric would have killed him for it. If only he hadn't tried to play the hero they would both still be here.

I had no idea what to make of it all. All I wanted to do now was go home. I wanted… I _needed _to be held by my Eric. If there was anyone who might make the nightmare of all this bearable it was him. Standing unsteadily I prepared to wait, when through the haze of my shock I heard a faint cry from down the hall: April.

She must have stopped crying at some point during the fight, realizing that no one was coming to her, but now all was quiet again she was making her displeasure known. Rushing down the hall, needing more than anything to see that she was alright, I shoved the half open nursery door aside and ran to her.

She was there in her crib, wearing a look of utter fear and confusion, the tracks of already drying tears streaking down her little face. She'd never been left like this before and she had no idea what to think about her brief abandonment. Her Mommy and Daddy had always come when she'd called. She looked at me then and I could swear I saw relief in her sweet little eyes.

Picking her up and cradling her in my arms I knew I had a choice. My Eric was coming for me and I _was_ going home. I could try to contact Pam or Jason to come for her and hope they would, but I'd probably never know one way or the other, or… I could take her with me.

Part of me said that she wasn't mine, that I didn't have the right to kidnap her the way Evil Eric had hoped to kidnap her mother. Another part of me, the bigger part, said that I couldn't leave her. She believed I was her mother, even if it was only because she wasn't old enough to know any better, and she was half me even if it was another me that made her. I had begun to think of her as mine since almost the first moment, and she believed I was hers.

I knew what it was to grow up without your parents and no one, not even the most loving guardian, could make up for the endless ache of that loss. But I could be her mother and I could take her home to another version of her father. She'd never have to be without her parents, even if the ones who'd made her and who'd loved her first were no longer here.

I owed April that. I owed Eric and Sookie that. So pushing the doubts out of my head, I walked back to the living room holding my little girl in my arms and waited.

Just like it had happened on both of the previous nights, lightning cracked close to the house, so close it made me jump back and then a shadowy shape appeared in the room. Only this time I wasn't afraid. I stood my ground and waited and as I knew he would, Eric…my Eric appeared in the room with me.

Our eyes met and our bond flared and without a single word between us, he held out his hand to me. Never taking my eyes from his, I reached for him, grasping onto him… my anchor in the storm, and when he pulled I went without a moment's hesitation.

One moment Eric held just my hand and then in the next I was completely in his arms, April pressed between us.

But Eric's eyes were just for me and he stared at me with such a look of tender adoration it nearly made my knees buckle. After all the bad that happened tonight, I felt as though his eyes were healing me with the strength of their emotion alone. And it was his eyes, those beautiful, arcticly blue eyes that were so cold in color, but held such a wealth of life and warmth behind them, that told me better than anything else I was once again safely home. That and his single breathy word of greeting.

"Lover."

I smiled up at him then and without needing or wanting to say anything more, I took the hand that wasn't cradling the baby and reached up. Cupping the back his head and entwining my fingers in his long, silky gold hair, I pulled his lips down to mine and took them in a kiss that I hoped, along with our bond, told him everything he needed to know.

**Epilogue:**

I woke sometime in the middle of the night unsure what had pulled me from the blissfulness of sleep. Given the way the past few days had gone my first reaction was wariness. That wariness turned into outright panic when I looked over to find April was no longer beside me.

We had been home, in my right reality for less than a week and I slept with her in my arms every night since then. I knew she needed to have her own room again with her own crib, but something in me, maybe still shaken from the horrible night that had made her mine, wanted to keep her close. I needed to have her right where I could see and hear and touch her whenever either of us needed reassurance.

Finding her mysteriously gone, I bolted out of bed in near hysterical panic. I ran out of my bedroom without even giving a glance to my robe or a thought to modesty. My only thoughts were for my baby. Where had she gone, who could have taken her from right beside me?

It was probably comical, the way I skidded to halt on the slippery hardwood floors in the entryway to the kitchen, but I didn't even stop to think about it. The sight that greeted me there, was anything but funny. I knew then what had woken me.

It was the sound of singing.

Déjà vu was the first feeling that crept over me as I looked at the scene before me, but it was quickly washed away by the utter, heart stopping well of love that engulfed me. April was there, healthy and alive and as far from danger as she could possibly have been. Her tiny mind was radiating the most pure waves of love and adoration as she stared up at the man who held her.

It was the same way she'd felt when her Human father had held her in this very kitchen less than a week ago. Only now she was feeling it for my Eric. And Eric, who'd seemed so unsure about her, almost frightened of her, when he'd first seen her in my arms, now held her protectively, dancing slowly around the kitchen and singing to her.

They weren't alone though. Sitting at my kitchen table, in a strange twist of the very same moment I'd witnessed just a few mornings before in another reality, was Bubba. He smiled serenely watching the Vampire Sheriff sway while cradling the angelic little girl, and gifted them with one of his rare moments of song as he and Eric serenaded April with a duet of "Can't Help Falling in Love".

As Eric turned in time to the languid rhythm of the song, I caught his attention and a wide smile lit his face. This time, the Eric who stared at me as though I was the sun itself wasn't expecting another version of me. This time he didn't look at me, realize who I was, and let his smile drop. This time_ I_ was the Sookie he was looking for. _I _was the Sookie he loved and this time he opened his long, strong arms and beckoned me to him.

In that moment, I knew I would always mourn for the other versions of us. Their lives had been so idyllic so filled with light and love, they hadn't deserved what happened to them. But I would never regret my strange journey. I hoped wherever they were they knew I would love their child, _my _child, with every ounce of my being. Looking at Eric, holding the tiny blonde bundle of baby as though she were made of the most precious, fragile material on earth, I knew her father would love her too.

The strange machinations of a mad man who longed to be loved, but hadn't truly understood what love was, had wrought a havoc I could never have imagined. But his evil had brought me a gift I would never have dared hope for. Not only had I been shown the love I had been denying for my Vampire, but it had brought us a daughter too, a daughter who was one part me, one part Eric and all miracle.

I went into Eric's arms then, more willingly than I had ever done anything.

And as Eric's held me close against his body, April between us, we all began to sway together, dancing as Bubba sang. It was a magical moment made all the more perfect when Eric leaned down and began to whisper the words of the song into my ear. As Eric sang to me and April cooed in happiness to have us both holding her so tightly, it hit me.

There we were, April, Eric and I: a family.


End file.
